Readers!

New Capenna is here and however you feel about this set and the staggering amount of Italian stereotypes everyone is super fond of, we’ll have new cards to worry about in a few weeks. We’re getting 19 new Legendary creatures in New Capenna plus a bunch more in the EDH decks, all of which adds up to a pretty full docket. I am not touching the EDH deck cards unless they end up in the decks of the cards in the set because I am barely hanging on, mentally. In 3 weeks there will be another 2,000 cards I’m expected to know, and not only is the pace of products increasing, they’re going to jack the cost of packs up 11%. The IPCC says the world is on pace to be unlivable for humans, I bought the max on Street Fighter and Dracula Secret Lairs and I’m worried I might not have the wherewithal to see them and I literally just did this a few weeks ago and here we are again. You in the mood to read some finance tips yet? If you’d really rather invest in cardboard than water filters and ammunition, I guess you’re in luck because I really only know how to do one thing, and that’s identify potential for cards to increase in value.

Realistically, only the top 5 here really matter. Do I think this top 5 will be the final top 5? I don’t, but I also think that the guilds are so narrow and focused that there is probably a lot of overlap and we likely just need to pick one commander from each wedge or famiglia or whatever they’re calling them, and try to extrapolate which cards will matter for each strategy. I’m not positive this will work, but we’ll have enough data next week to get super granular anyway and everything I said this week will be forgotten already. Let’s drill down into some of these sumbitches, shall we? No wrong answers, let’s just look at some Magic cards.

I feel like I call out all of these cards every couple of weeks. I could tell you to buy Tendershoot Drayd for the tenth time, or we could look at these cards as a whole. It seems like lately, going wide in Naya colors is something design is focusing on and if these cards dodge reprints like they should, we’re in good shape. One card in particular I like right now is Dragonlair Spider.

A few very small reprints have managed to keep this in the bulkish region, but I wonder if we could make the price graph look more enticing by giving it the Ronald Reagan graph treatment.

Booya. If we’re going to let people use graphs to lie about trickle-down economics, I’m going to use one to make you think Dragonlair Spider is on an upward trajectory because, guess what, it is. I play Arasta in my decks but this is perfect for Jetmir decks and it eats Angels all day. I love this card and under $2, this seems like an easy double-up.

This is obviously trending down long-term, but it seems to have bottomed out. Not convinced?

I can lie with graphs all day.

The thing is, the buylist value is trending up alongside retail, so this could be starting to finally climb after bottoming out. This was always a solid card with no deck, and with it being a Mythic, there is opportunity here. The other high synergy cards are obvious or cards I called before, but these 2 seem poised to me.

This is a frankly bonkers set of high synergy cards.

The real question here is whether Amonkhet was long ago enough that a bulk rare could pop.

2 printings at non-mythic? Looks bad.

Welp

WELP.

OK, but there has to be something else we can buy into.

I think rotation from Standard, a thing that shouldn’t affect prices since no one plays paper Standard but which serves as a psychological impetus to see your “rotated” cards as worthless likely makes this go down more. Is there ANYTHING in this deck that is a good buy?

This isn’t in the Esper precon and I’m pretty sure it’s not in the Bant one, either, in which case this seems very good under $5 and still probably fine in the $5-$7 range, though acting fast eliminates the need to pay that much.

Much better.

*prolonged cartoon fart noise*

Discard is really boring and super hard to do in Commander. A lot of decks play out of their ‘yard a ton and you’re helping them, and if you’re milling people, you need to do 300 damage and 20 cards for 2 mana doesn’t seem as cool anymore. Still, 63 card unsleeved casual decks love discard and any help from this just helps those cards fulfill their destiny of being cards people are glad to sell for a buck on a buylist.

This is on a great trajectory but it’s still gettable under $5 and you should do that. Literally, any time a card is $9 on Card Kingdom and $5 on TCG Player, Card Kingdom is screaming at you that the card sells for $9 on their platform and you should pay attention.

You shouldn’t grab a falling knife (or do what I did and “trap” it like a soccer ball as a reflex) but this likely bottoms out around $2 and it’s very good in a deck with a Commander you want to keep casting that is a whopping 7 mana the first cast and uncastable after that. Be aware, this card is only good if they ever print another Red Commander again that’s either a lot of mana or has a good ETB effect, something that isn’t guaranteed.

I have no idea how to evaluate this pile. The thing about reprint risk for these Angels is that they could all get reprinted in the same deck. I don’t know, are any of these good specs?

Buying in at $2 would have been obviously better, but $4 doesn’t suck, either. This has flirted with $8 in the past. Is this propped up by Standard? I don’t think that’s a thing, but maybe? Either way, this card is actually absurd when you read what it does and buying in under $4 seems advisable.

I’ll have more data next week, but for now, thanks for reading and be sure to argue with me in the comments section or in the Pro Trader Discord server you can access by becoming a Pro Trader. Until next time!